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+--- Thread: Star Trek loses a shining star. (/showthread.php?tid=529)
Star Trek loses a shining star. - Enchantress - 11-02-2005
From Ain't It Cool News-
Michael Piller, a longtime executive producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, lost his battle with cancer today. The co-creator of Deep Space Nine and Voyager and writer of Star Trek: Insurrection, whose most recent production was the ABC Family series Wildfire, died at age 57.
Piller, who produced more than 500 hours of Star Trek, had struggled with an aggressive form of head and neck cancer but kept his condition private from many of his associates. StarTrek.com notes that in addition to his writing and producing credits on the Star Trek shows, Piller co-created UPN's Legend and more recently USA's The Dead Zone, along with his son, Shawn Piller.
Born in Portchester, New York, Piller worked at one time as a television censor. Before he became a full-time writer, he was an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist with CBS News in New York. Stints as an editor and news director in Charlotte and Chicago preceded a job as a programming executive. Piller's credits included police dramas such as Cagney & Lacey and Miami Vice; in addition to The Dead Zone and Wildfire, he co-created and executive produced Group One Medical.
After joining the writing staff of The Next Generation, Piller created Deep Space Nine together with Rick Berman - the first show to bear the name of Star Trek in which Gene Roddenberry was not directly involved. Later Berman and Piller co-created Voyager with Jeri Taylor. After leaving his production job with the Star Trek franchise to work with Shawn at Piller Squared, Michael Piller remained a creative consultant on Star Trek: Voyager.
"Michael Piller was a class act, a generous soul, and a genuinely nice guy to work for," said graphic designer and scenic art supervisor Michael Okuda, who has been involved with the Star Trek franchise since the original series feature films. "We're all indebted to his talent and his hard work. He left us far too soon, and we will miss him greatly."
- GlennWalker - 11-02-2005
It is indeed a tragic loss. I know that he had been fighting his cancer for well over a decade. We've truly lost one of the good guys.
Glenn